Bridget Read (on multilevel marketing)

Episode overview

Bridget Read (Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America) is a features writer, journalist, and author. Bridget joins the Armchair Expert to discuss working as a young writer at Vogue during the blog boom, how door-to-door salesmen evolved into multi-level marketing, and the winners, losers, and buy-in rules that designate a Ponzi scheme. Bridget and Dax talk about vitamins being the original pyramid scheme product, the staggering fact that 99% of folks involved in MLMs will lose money, and the pseudo-feminist origin story of Mary Kay. Bridget explains the mystical and religious appeal of multi-level marketing language, how pyramid schemes are really a microcosm of our entire system of income inequality, and why refusing to buy from loved ones involved in MLMs actually helps them in the long run.

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Short transcript highlights

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1. 0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.
2. 1:09:43I want to talk about the um the Christian element of it. And and in my
3. 2:22:52the type of person. Yeah, but I wanted her on, but we didn't plan it well. So maybe another time.